When managing a semiconductor manufacturing facility, users typically modify commonly used flows, which takes a substantial amount of time and system resources. Generally, a semiconductor manufacturing line is utilized for experimental processing or high-volume manufacturing. Both manual local flow changes and automatic global flow changes should be supported no matter where an object resides on the manufacturing line.
When managing experimental processing on a semiconductor manufacturing line, the focus is on flexibility, robustness, efficiency and accuracy. Flexibility is important in that the engineer should be able to construct any valid flow and any valid set of special processing conditions. Robustness is valuable in that whatever the engineer specifies should be carried out by the operator in the semiconductor manufacturing facility, which can be especially challenging when the processing conditions are very new. Efficiency is important in that the pace of technology development demands rapid experimentation and analysis, so the configuration system should support very efficient interaction. Accuracy is beneficial in that the engineer should take into account a large amount of information when changing experimental flows, including up-to-the-minute processing information.
When managing high performance volume manufacturing, the focus is on throughput, control, and continuous improvement. In this environment, many lots in the semiconductor manufacturing facility may be running against a common flow. These lots are at various stages of processing—some just beginning, some in the middle of the flow, and some near the end. Often, the standard flow is revised to address systemic issues—perhaps to add an additional step to improve consistency or performance, or remove a step for efficiency. This change may be made to the common flow, and propagated to all lots using that flow very efficiently.
Current systems supporting flow changes are designed so that the manufacturing execution system primarily serves efficient mass changes. Additionally, current systems include configuration and execution systems as distinct components that control the semiconductor manufacturing facility. Manual local or automatic global flow changes are separately applied to both of the loosely-coupled configuration and execution systems. Mismatches resulting from flow changes to the two systems can be detected. However, actions taken by the systems to prevent misprocessing are inefficient. Typically, the actions involve manual intervention to bring flow changes to a consistent state.
Furthermore, under the current state of the art, systems that support flexible experimental manufacturing are typically developed as sidecar systems that exist alongside the mainstream standard high-volume manufacturing systems. As a result, experimental configuration is typically done ad hoc, through off-line processing and paper trails, or through development of the sidecar system to specify experimental processing while not tied to the execution systems. The combination of sidecar and execution systems allows for flexible specification, but has all of the limitations of inefficient mass changes. In addition, this combination can result in the two systems being mismatched, resulting in an indeterminate specification of flow.